two kilos of cocaine is being consumed in Gibraltar every month, according to estimates by the Royal Gibraltar Police.
The figure is based on analysis of drug seizures and intelligence gathered during anti-drug operations and routine police work.
The amount is modest compared to drug consumption levels in other jurisdictions.
But it will nonetheless prove shocking for the majority of people in the community, who have no direct contact with the drugs underworld.
The figure was revealed by RGP Commissioner Louis Wink during a frank interview with the Chronicle in the wake of comments in the Supreme Court by Puisne Judge Karen Prescott, who said the sale of cocaine was “prevalent” in Gibraltar.
Mr Wink agreed with the judge and said that, while his officers and the courts were tackling the problem robustly, greater commitment was needed from the wider community in the fight against drugs.
Statistics from the Gibraltar Police Authority show that the police detection rate for drug offences is higher than ever before. More dealers are being sent to jail, often for very long stretches even for relatively small amounts.
“The courts are saturated with drug cases because of our enforcement activity,” Mr Wink said.
“If the sentences being handed down by the courts now are not a deterrent, then nothing is.”
“The word out on the streets now is that if you get caught with drugs in Gibraltar, you’re going down for a long time.”
THE PROBLEM
The problem, however, is that for every person arrested selling drugs, another steps up to take his or her place. Deterrents apart, the drugs are still available on the street.
The RGP has law enforcement as its main priority and also help educate the community on the dangers of drugs, particularly youngsters.
“But I think people need to get more involved to create an environment where it is clearly evident that drugs are unacceptable to our community,” Mr Wink said.
For Mr Wink, that means a willingness to finger the bad guys.
“People need to get more involved in assisting the police to identify who the dealers are,” Mr Wink said. “We don’t know everything that goes on.”
Sitting next to Mr Wink during the interview were Chief Inspector Emilio Acris and the officer who heads the RGP’s Drug Squad and who, for obvious reasons, cannot be named.
Between the three of them, they provided a warts-and-all glimpse of the realities of a world that most people, thankfully, are rarely exposed to. But is a world that continues to attract and entrap a wide cross-section of local society.
Most if not all the cocaine consumed in Gibraltar is bought in Spain and comes in across the border. The drug is purchased in small amounts and detection can be hard. A small bag with 20 grams of cocaine could be stashed in any number of places in a car, for example.
The price of a gram of cocaine from a street dealer in Gibraltar is currently between £50 and £60, in line with the rest of Europe. The one thing that varies is the purity.
In general the cocaine consumed in Gibraltar is about 30% pure, the rest being a mix of glucose, bicarbonate of soda and other such substances used by dealers to bulk up their goods and increase their profits.
When people ‘snort a line of coke’, cocaine is just a small percentage of what is going up their nose.
“Most of the cutting is done in Spain,” the Drug Squad officer said.
“The effects of cocaine will last half an hour and there are some people who will take one, two, three grams a night.”
The problems associated to drug abuse are further exacerbated because people often mix their substances on a night out, consuming cocktails of Class A drugs like cocaine, soft drugs like cannabis, and very often alcohol too.
If anyone wants to see what the outcome of this can be when things go wrong, a visit to the Magistrates Court will suffice.
Drugs and alcohol fuel much, if not most of the low level crime on the streets of Gibraltar, particularly at the weekend.
On a daily basis, people appear before the Magistrate charged with offences committed while drunk or high on drugs, or both.
USER PROFILES
So who takes cocaine? According to these three seasoned officers, there is no obvious stereotype. It can range from courtroom regulars who spend much of their time as defendants in the dock, to white collar workers and “people you would be surprised at”.
The use of cocaine is particularly prevalent among people in their 20s and 30s, less so at a younger age.
“This is a different kettle of fish to offences of violence, where we’ve got the same people going in and out of court all of the time,” Mr Wink said.
“The use of drugs is becoming more widespread.”
“And it’s not just confined to an age group or a certain particular group of individuals.”
“It’s more widespread than that.”
The monthly consumption figure is the RGP’s best assessment of the scale of the problem, based on its own data and intelligence.
“That is what our analysis tells us, that Gibraltar might consume about two kilos of cocaine in a month,” Mr Wink said.
Although surprising at first glance, the figure is easily explained. If there are 500 people in Gibraltar who consume cocaine and each takes a gram at the weekend, then that amounts to two kilos a month. And according to the police, there are almost certainly more than 500 people who consume cocaine in Gibraltar, at least intermittently.
Not everyone who takes cocaine or other drugs is a hardcore user. Some of the stories shared by the three officers pointed to dabblers with a somewhat casual approach to drug taking.
“It is commonly known that during Christmas you get shopping lists in particular workplaces [placed by] people who don’t normally use drugs,” Mr Wink said by way of example.
“They give a shopping list to one individual who is responsible for supplying his work colleagues during that festive period.”
“We know that and we’ve detected a few of these cases.”
GOING UNDERGROUND
One effect of hitting dealers hard is that they are going further underground.
Whether enforcement and tough sentences are working in terms of cutting down the scale of the drug problem is difficult to assess but one thing is clear: catching dealers is becoming increasingly hard.
“Either people are not consuming drugs, or they are being more careful in how they do it,” Mr Wink said.
Dealers and users alike are changing the way they handle drugs. They stash them outside their homes and minimise the time they have the narcotics on their person.
“Often we now have to relay on DNA, fingerprints and other forensic techniques to link drugs to a person,” Mr Acris said.
“That’s what happens when you have a combination of strict enforcement and tough sentences.”
One of the challenges facing the authorities is that measuring the scale of the problem is very difficult because the only reliable indicator comes from police arrest figures and court data.
But those numbers, as Mr Wink points out, can be deceptive and misleading. If, for example, police arrest 100 dealers one year and 200 dealers the next, does it mean the problem is getting worse? Or does it mean that police are getting better at their job?
In Gibraltar, there is no publicly available data on drug use that excludes arrest and conviction data.
“We cannot underestimate the problem that we have,” Mr Wink said. “But we ourselves can make it worse in terms of perception.
TO CATCH A DEALER
So how do you go about catching a dealer? With difficulty, it appears.
There are no ‘big fish’ in Gibraltar of the sort seen on television. In this community, a person with 30 grams of cocaine in his pocket is a ‘big fish’.
“The difficulty we have in trying to catch these people is that their networks are so well established that to get into them is very, very difficult, especially in Gibraltar where everybody knows each other,” Mr Acris said.
“Criminals in general, but drug dealers in particular, have very good networks and unless you get referred, you won’t get anywhere near.”
The RGP has in the past carried out so-called ‘sting operations’, bringing in officers from outside Gibraltar to infiltrate particular criminal networks.
But apart from the fact that this is a labour-intensive, time-consuming and potentially dangerous process, the criminals have realised what was happening.
“We’ve done that so many times now that people have got wise to it,” Mr Wink said. “People will suss out anyone trying to come in and infiltrate them.”
These days, drug enforcement work is led by intelligence and good old detective work.
This is where the RGP could do with more help from the community. There is a sense among veteran officers that, unless they are personally touched by the scourge of drugs, most people would rather look away, even if for perfectly valid reasons.
Everybody knows that drugs destroy lives but most people, thankfully, never have to deal with this at first hand.
In practice though, it means many people do not engage sufficiently with the RGP to help them tackle the problem.
“People would rather keep away from getting involved,” Mr Wink said.
“They don’t like to snitch on other people, they don’t like to give evidence in court.”
“They fear perceived reprisals, which is understandable.”
“But we have a drugs hotline which is hardly used.”
“There is a crimes hotline where people can call in and give information anonymously, but people are hardly using that.”
Gibraltar’s small size and the high profile the police officers often get, especially after a few years on the job, further complicates the job of catching dealers.
Mr Wink said that young people enjoying a night out in Gibraltar would, as in other places in the developed world, be exposed to drugs at some point or other.
“When youth go out at night, they are exposed,” he said.
“They get offered drugs.”
“Those drugs are not going to be offered in the presence of a police officer [because] we are well known in Gibraltar.”
“But it will happen in the presence of other citizens.”
“That is where we want the community to help out and come forward to inform us.”
In reality though, the reverse often occurs. Rather than help police, people make their work even harder.
When they investigate possible drug distribution points – he would not name where, other than to say “certain estates” – Mr Wink said officers come up against “a wall of silence”.
But it is even worse than that. Past experience shows that when officers move in discreetly to mount surveillance operations, warnings are sent round the estates as soon as they are spotted.
“We are very often hampered by people in the community,” said Mr Wink.
“The people who need to be aware of the problem – the authorities and the law enforcement family - are indeed acutely aware.”
“But there needs to be more involvement from the community.”
“This is not only an enforcement issue.”
“It’s an issue that involves the whole of the community.”
BEHIND THE SCENES
Gibraltar owes a debt of gratitude to specialised police officers who make huge personal sacrifices to combat the sale of drugs in this community, Police Commissioner Louis Wink said this week.
Mr Wink was highlighting the difficult, demanding and often dangerous work carried out by this small group of detectives.
He was speaking during an interview in which he was joined by the head of the Drug Squad, who cannot be named for obvious reasons.
This core group of handpicked officers does the legwork needed to detect and arrest drug dealers in Gibraltar.
They work flexible hours – long shifts, inevitably – and can draw on the wider uniformed and plainclothes resources of the RGP whenever they need operational support.
“For me it’s the best job in the police,” the head of the Drug Squad said.
“It’s the thrill of getting these people who are committing these crimes that are affecting our youth.”
“It’s the fact that we can get them, that we are as good as them.”
“They’re trying to avoid us, but we get them.”
This small team of officers focuses solely on drug enforcement and it members are among the best detectives in the RGP.
They are dedicated to the task and willing to make huge personal sacrifices to get the job done.
This cannot be underplayed, and was illustrated two years ago when an officer’s property was set on fire while his family was inside the home. It was not the first time such a thing had happened.
“The perks of the trade for all police officers, but especially for Drug Squad officers,” Mr Wink said with irony, “are having their house burnt, having their families threatened, having their cars damaged, being assaulted and having constant attempts at intimation.”
“They overcome all that and they still get the job done.”
“I’m indebted to them, and Gibraltar is indebted to them.”
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